The Beautiful Changes – Richard Wilbur
One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne's Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon's tuning his skin to it;
As a mantis, arranged
On a green leaf, grows
Into it, makes the leaf leafier, and proves
Any greenness is deeper than anyone knows.
Your hands hold roses always in a way that says
They are not only yours; the beautiful changes
In such kind ways,
Wishing ever to sunder
Things and things' selves for a second finding, to lose
For a moment all that it touches back to wonder.
1. The poem has a musical quality to its rhythm that seems long and drawn out, soft and
relaxed. Fine three ways Wilbur achieves this effect and list them here with an example for
each.
A)
B)
C)
2. How is the meadow transformed in the first stanza and given different qualities? (Show)
3. Each stanza contains three different subjects, yet they all have one thing in common.
Explain.
4. In general, how does the “beautiful change” things according to the speaker?